Cat Stevens

Cat Stevens (21 July 1948-), born Steven Demetre Georgiou, was a British singer-songwriter who was known for his folk rock songs during the 1960s and 1970s. He was born in London, England, the son of a Greek Orthodox Cypriot father and a Baptist Swedish mother; he went to Catholic school. He became a musician and released his debut album, Matthew and Son, in 1967; his 1970 album Tea for the Tillerman and his 1971 album Teaser and the Firecat were massive successes in the United States. Stevens, once a hard-partying musician and a believer in "flower power", was gifted the Quran by his brother during the mid-1970s, and he converted to Islam in December 1977 and changed his name to Yusuf Islam. In 1979, he auctioned all of his guitars for charity, and he began to record Islamic music. Stevens became a moderate Islamist, desiring a theocratic solution to life and society's problems, and adhering to fundamentalist Islam. In 1989, he became embroiled in controversy for supporting the banning of The Satanic Verses. In 2006, he returned to pop music under the name "Yusuf" and experienced a resurgence in popularity.